European Journal of Scientific Research (ISSN: 1450 ... - EuroJournals

© European Journal of Scientific Research, Vol 7, No 5, 2005
ramifications, the GCC stands as proof that regional accord among Arab countries on a host of
developmental, strategic and security issues is possible... (Anthony, 1996)
In this paper, I will provide a comparative analysis of the European Union (EU) and the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC), defining and explaining the history and development of each group;
comparing their respective organizational structures and institutional functions; and assessing the
successes and failures of each bloc. The conclusion is a personal analysis of the reasons that may
have limited the success of the GCC versus the EU.
THE EUROPEAN UNION
Signed in December 1991 by delegates from the then 12-member EC states in Maastricht, The
Netherlands, the Treaty on European Union (or the "Maastricht Treaty), formally changed the
name of the EC to the E.U (European Union). The opening paragraph of the, 250 - page Treaty
reads: "By this Treaty; the High Contracting Parties establish among themselves. A European
Union (Caporaso, 1996).
Maastricht does not represent the birth of the European Union, but rather the final steps to a long
process of European integration and regional cooperation. Scholars note that through the long
process of creating the European Union, the member states and their leaders followed a
"Functionalist" approach (Michael, 1989; Marks and Blank, 1996). While the pursuit of the
functionalist approach has led to the accurate observation that European integration has
developed over the course of forty-five years. As explained by Gavazza and Pelanda:
For the functionalists, European integration is a process of transferring national powers to a
supranational entity through measures called for, made necessary-in some sense, by economic
interests and by the market. Three rules have usually guided this process. First to maintain the
process of constructing the Community, the states of economic integration must follow each
other without interruption. Second, every stage must be concluded with an enrichment of the
array of powers available to the community. Third, no stage must ever be complete and perfect,
in order that the next step is made inevitable (Caporaso, 1996).
Thus, it was functionalist logic which motivated the passage of the Single European Act (the
Single Market Act) bereft of any provisions related to a common currency or central bank. The
Maastricht Treaty itself gives formal recognition to the use of the functionalist approach, noting
in Paragraph 2 of Article A that the Treaty "marks a new stage in the process of creating an every
closer union among the peoples of Europe." (Holms and Jenkins, 1996).
EU: HISTORY-& DEVELOPMENT
The development of the EU can be broken into three major stages: 1) an initial stage of policy
development and consolidation; 2) a second stage of expansion, widening, and stagnation; and 3)
a third stage of mote rapid movement toward complete integration, ending with the 1986 Single
Market Act and the 1991 Maastricht Treaty (Rybezynski, 1993).
The roots of the European Union can be found in the years following the end of World War II
and the political ideals of Jean Monnet (a French civil servant), Robert Schuman (the French
foreign minister), and Altiero, Spinelli (an Italian politician who argued in favor of the creation of
a federalist Europe) (Michael, 1989). While they differed in their specific areas of emphasis and
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